For Nothing Read online

  For Nothing

  For Nothing

  By

  Nicholas Denmon

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, incidents are a product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events or organizations is coincidental.

  For Nothing

  Copyright © 2011 by Nicholas Denmon

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced without permission.

  To my family, friends, and Jen. A special thanks to the city of Buffalo and those on both sides of the law who helped contribute to this novel.

  Chapter 1

  He could see it happening. It was too fast. He told himself to step aside and reach for his pistol, but he heard his doom, and then he saw it.

  The firing mechanism clicked, creating a chemical reaction that bottled up behind the bullet. The fiery reaction, trapped behind the bullet, groaned in protest at the delay the projectile was causing. Then, all at once, the force became too much for the bullet to hold back. With a roar, the bullet emerged from the chamber and exited out the muzzle of the cold .45 caliber pistol. The flames of the gunpowder explosion followed soon after, enveloping the bullet for a millisecond before it reemerged from its heated escort. The ball hurtled forward, burst through the leather material, through the cotton of the shirt below, and penetrated into soft flesh.

  He stumbled with the impact.

  As the bullet traveled, it displaced the blood in its cruel path and shattered the bone of the breastplate. The impact as the projectile splintered through that protective bone caused the tempered metal of the bullet to flatten into the size and form of a nickel. With the speed of light it split a seam between the pulsating heart on its right and the unmoving spinal column on its left, shredding a lung as it sped past. With less ease than it entered, the lead blasted out the rear, taking the newest layer of skin and a small fragment of the breastplate along for the ride and ripped another, larger hole through the back side of the cotton shirt and leather jacket. The ball proceeded forward for about a foot until it blasted into the brick of a building and came to rest, lodged into the sturdy masonry.

  The hole that appeared in his back kicked him forward and threw Jack to his knees. His back throbbed, but the impact on his knees hurt worse, and he rolled over, feeling the cold, wet gravel on the side of his face. Jack tried to draw a breath. He opened his eyes and saw nothing, blinded by the light of the street lamp. He felt them strain as he realized the air wasn’t coming. He tried again, still nothing. Only it was worse. Again. Nothing. Again. Worse. Warm water came out of his mouth.

  Damn it, he thought, it was air he wanted. Air, damn it.

  The incident took less than a second. One second to send Jack’s blood pouring into his lungs and send his body crumpling to the ground. He gasped for a breath that would never come. His chest seized. Jack wanted to sit up, to get help, but his body couldn’t respond to his pleas for action. He thought it ironic that here on a city street, so far from the nearest body of water, he felt as if he were drowning. The simple irony of it all left as fast as it came. He wheezed for air. The effort sent a spout of blood shooting from his mouth in a gurgled gasp. One second. One second was all it took to send twenty-eight years of moments, his life, flashing before his eyes, quicker than he could grasp and hang on to them. As this latest incident slipped past his scattered and fading memory, Jack slipped into eternal darkness.

  *

  The lone assassin stood there a moment, contemplating the kill. He killed scores of men, and some women, but it never ceased to amaze him how he could take life with such ease. This last one was a joke. Jack should have been prepared. He knew the rules that they lived by. He knew the rules that they, in the end, died by.

  Rafael Rontego took another drag on his cigarette. He knew that time was not an issue in this particular district, but nevertheless he didn’t want to take a chance. His employer owned the police, but he hadn’t survived this long by leaving things to luck.

  Witnesses. He laughed at the notion, but took a cautious look around at the windows that overlooked the street. Drawn blinds greeted him. No one would be so foolish as to get involved with a hit. They too knew the rules. Besides, Rafael chose this district for just those reasons. The slum of this neighborhood did not even begin to show up on the “We give a shit” radar of the Buffalo city police. Witnesses were not an issue here.

  He looked down as the body of his latest victim twitched. It looked somewhat eerie to the killer, splayed as it was, under the lone street lamp of Walden Avenue. For a moment Rafael thought perhaps Jack survived the shot to the chest, center mass. He flicked the ash from the tip of his cigarette and peered at the body with more intent.

  No. This one is dead.

  A chuckle slipped past his thin lips along with the exhalation of his favorite smoke, as he realized that the twitch was just the nervous system’s response. But Rafael hadn’t survived this long by leaving anything to fate, God, chance, whatever people called it. He stood over Jack and discharged a second bullet into his chest.

  He pulled once more on his cigarette.

  God bless Sobranie smokes.

  Rafael’s boot extinguished the last flickering of flame from the butt of the cigarette as he ground the filter into the sidewalk. The assassin’s head snapped up. His dark eyes followed the brim of his felt hat as he peered into the darkness. His ears focused with the precision of the trained killer he was. The dull echo of hurrying footsteps far down the city street greeted his ears. A block, perhaps two, from the direction of Genesee Street, down Stuart Avenue.

  He glanced below one last time at the crumpled form at his feet.

  Too easy.

  With a resigned sigh Rafael Rontego spun about, his trench coat twirling behind him, and vanished into the darkness.

  Chapter 2

  Jack came to him just forty-eight hours earlier. The last two days seemed like an eternity as they both worked out the details to protect Jack during the meeting. Jack was not very specific when he asked Alex Vaughn to help him; just that he needed some security with a meeting that was going down in a couple days. Alex was never one to pry; besides, if Jack wanted to divulge the specifics, he would have. Alex, of course, agreed to help him set up security. All Jack needed to do, all he ever needed to do, was ask.

  They settled things as they always did, with a beer at the Old Irish Pub down the street. Alex liked this place—quiet locals, cheap beer, and information if one needed it. Jack had some Southern Rock playing on the jukebox before Alex even arrived. Jack was always the first one there, wherever they met. But this time, when Alex arrived, there was nothing playing on the box and he noticed two empty shot glasses in front of Jack. Something was wrong. The explanation he got was that the guy he was meeting with was “not someone to be taken lightly” and that “he wanted some backup to ensure his safety.” Alex told Jack that in the particular area where they were meeting this informant they would need at least half a dozen personnel to cover all possibilities.

  Jack was adamant that there would not be anyone besides the two of them on the operation.

  “Six people?” he asked with obvious dismay. Though he tried to hide his anxiety, the uncomfortable shift of his weight gave him away.

  “Listen Jack, you wanted my help to set up a safe meeting and I’m telling you it can be done with no fewer than six people, maybe five but that’s stretching it. There are too many alleyways and side streets.” Alex looked him straight in the eye to hammer home the point.

  Again, the uncomfortable shift in weight. This time, though, it was accompanied by a slight grimace.

  “It has to be just the two of us Alex. The situation is too te
nuous for me to bring in anyone I don’t absolutely trust.”

  And that was that. Even though Jack asked Alex for his help, he didn’t intend to listen to his advice.

  “What the hell, I’m just an undercover cop, what the fuck would I know about security on a damned urban street?” he thought with not just a small hint of sarcasm.

  With Jack’s unwillingness to bring in others on this mysterious op, there wasn’t much Alex could do. He gave Jack a two-way transmitting earpiece so that they could hear each other, and waited about four blocks from the meeting place in his newest speedster, a rusty, faded blue ’97 Ford Taurus. Jack was armed, that was good. He carried his police-issued revolver. Alex never left the house without his 9mm Beretta, the envy of beat cops carrying popguns. With the little assistance he could offer, Alex hoped the situation Jack was in didn’t go awry.

  Only it did.

  At first it was just technical things—the earpiece was getting some sort of static. Alex first started to notice it when Jack was a few blocks away. He couldn’t figure out what could be fucking with his damned earpiece. The range on it, he knew, was five miles. A few blocks should have no effect on the signal. That’s when he noticed it. A low airplane flew in from the west.

  “Damn.”

  How could he be so stupid, how many times had he worked this district? Buffalo Niagara International. He knew the right frequency to avoid air traffic control interference.

  Alex tried to call Jack in to fix the frequency, “Hey Jack, if you hear me, switch the channel on your earpiece to five.”

  “I..nt...…essed...static.” was all he got from Jack in reply.

  “Fuck!” Alex hated this shit. Jack could be no more than a few blocks down, maybe if he ran down to him and told him before he reached the rendezvous. He slipped his butterfly knife into his right ankle strap and pulled his jeans over his brown boots. Winter in Buffalo is harsh.

  Alex turned off his car feeling the biting frost of negative degree weather and pulled his brown leather jacket in close, flipping his collar up to break the swirling wind. As an afterthought while he hustled down the street, Alex patted his Beretta on his left hip. Alex had a draw so fast it promised death and even deadlier aim; he graduated in the top of his class at the academy. Patting the firearm, snug on his hip, he felt reassured. Alex hurried west on Walden Avenue, passing a boarded-up liquor store on his left and a burnt-out building on his right.

  “Lovely,” he whispered to himself.

  Alex was gaining on Jack. He knew it because the earpiece was coming in clearer now and Alex was only three blocks away from the meeting. Alex stopped. He now heard another voice on the earpiece. Jack must have already made contact with whomever he was meeting. Alex slipped into an alleyway to his right and there he waited to see what was going down. Both the voices sounded muffled.

  “Damn it all Jack, turn up your volume,” Alex pleaded, hoping that Jack could hear him.

  He crouched in the alley for what seemed like an hour, though his watch revealed to him the truth of the matter. A mere five minutes went by. He edged his head around the corner trying to get a good view of the street. That’s when he heard it; through the static he heard it, the unmistakable whoosh of a muffled blast. Alex leapt out of the alleyway and ran down the street. It all seemed surreal to him and he felt like his legs were weighed down by lead.

  God, let that have been Jack’s gun, he thought.

  Even as he thought it, he knew that he was wrong. Jack had no silencer. What came through the earpiece next was unmistakable. Jack’s voice came through. Even though it came in as a gurgling mess, Alex knew Jack’s voice anywhere. Still running, Alex’s face drooped into a frozen grimace. He needed to get to the rendezvous.

  As Alex neared the meeting point he almost let out a sigh of relief. There, in the street light, he was able to make out the form of a man under the-not-too-distant street lamp. Beyond that, the one thing on the street was an old white van parked haphazardly half a block down.

  When Alex got closer to the street light though, his muscles tensed and his jaw clenched as he realized that the figure silhouetted under the glow was not Jack. Now aware of his own fast-falling footsteps, Alex slowed his pace down. The shadowy figure before him let out a breath into the gloom; the warm puff mingled with the frigid winter air. Alex trailed his gaze down to the pavement and his heart fell to the pit of his stomach. Alex knew it was Jack’s crumpled form.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Alex ran forward, quickening his pace, and snapping his head up to face his newfound adversary. With a start, he realized that his adversary was already on the move. All he glimpsed as he neared the horrific scene was the twirl of a coat rounding the corner up ahead.

  After what seemed like hours, Alex made it to the spot where Jack lay sprawled on the sidewalk, his blood flowing onto the soft white snow beneath the prone form. The warm lifeblood of Jack was melting the snow and causing a slight steam to rise up from the tainted purity of the white winter freeze.

  Alex knelt next to Jack, knowing the futility of it, yet he pushed his fingers up to Jack’s lifeless wrist with all the tenderness he could muster. No pulse.

  “Aw, Jack. What mess have you gotten yourself into?” Alex asked.

  As he spoke, he touched Jack’s face and wiped the blood that dripped from his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. Alex’s jawbone became taut as he attempted to hold his emotions from brimming over and the tears that begged to pour out, within.

  With a sudden ferocity, Alex sprang up. It might be too late for Jack, but he’d be damned if it were too late for him to put a few lead holes through this bastard that committed the vile deed.

  He took off around the corner. Running as fast as he could, he tried to think of where someone would stash a getaway car in this district. Alex knew where to go. Three blocks down there was an alley that was all but hidden from the main highway. It was the perfect spot.

  He accelerated faster than even he thought was possible. Alex pushed himself to look past the burn that found its way into his legs as he ran past one block, then two. As he neared the third block and rounded the corner to come into the alley, he was brought to a sudden halt.

  The headlights of a car were right in his face, assaulting his eyes that became accustomed to the night. Blinded by the glare, yet realizing that the car was speeding towards him due to the roar of the spinning wheels, Alex hurled his body behind the corner of the street. Inches. That was all that separated Alex from becoming mush on the windshield of the speeding automobile.

  A quick flash of a bug splattered across his car front shot through his mind. With a shake of his head, Alex threw off the blindness now that the car’s lights sped off down the road. He tried to peer at the fleeing car’s rear bumper, hoping to see the license plate of the car before it was out of his vision.

  “Fuck!” Alex said, realizing that the car was too far for such a stroke of luck. With all the bottled rage spilling out, Alex let out a primal scream.

  With a rush of adrenaline, he swung at the brick of the building next to him. The sturdy masonry did not give. His hand did, and the bones in his hands made a loud ‘pop’ that sent a sudden wave of pain into Alex’s frayed nervous system. Alex flexed his hand; it was hurt, but not broken. Already, he could feel the blood rushing into his hand swelling his knuckles. He tried to grab his cell phone from his pocket but he couldn’t get his swollen knuckles into the jeans. He reached in with his other hand and flipped the screen open. No service. With a grunt he shoved the cell back into his pocket with his injured hand.

  Blinded for the second time in the evening—this time with the searing agony pulsating up from his swollen hand; Alex began to make his way down the deserted street. He needed to return to the body, to find some sort of evidence as to what transpired in the crucial moments between Jack’s arrival at the scene and his subsequent murder.

  On the way, he spotted a telephone booth and decided that he would use the payphone to call in the incide
nt. After all of this, the cavalry would be a welcomed sight. He began to reach into his jacket, oblivious to the biting chill swirling on the winter winds. Plucking change from his pocket, he picked up the phone and shoved it between his cheek and shoulder. Damn his stupidity for injuring his hand.

  Even this call is a hassle with one appendage out of commission, he thought. Dialing into the precinct, Alex composed himself enough to explain to the switchboard patrolman the situation.

  Letting out a deep breath that trailed out in a wisp of whitened smoke, he walked up to the place of Jack’s last gasps. Jack stopped bleeding; at least the flow stopped. Gentle swirls of falling snow began to cover up the footprints that were scattered in on the sidewalk. Fresh flakes settled on the bloodstained snow shifting the macabre spectacle one flake at a time. As Alex stood looking down at the scene, his knees became weak and gave out on him altogether. With the adrenaline drained from his body, Alex could no longer find the strength to stand and collapsed onto his knees, half melting into the snow at Jack’s side.

  With fresh falling snow now blanketing the bloodstained scene below, he thought it odd that Jack looked asleep. Alex held his head. He needed the familiarity, the solace, of shielding his eyes from the sight before him. He stayed like that for a long moment.

  Summoning control over himself once again, Alex let out another cleansing breath and dropped his hands onto the chilled body of Jack and rolled him over. He noticed with interest that the bullet shot right through Jack’s back. That meant the shot must have been close. Judging by the fact that Jack’s weapon was not even drawn meant one of two things. Either he did not see the danger coming, didn’t expect it, or perhaps the assailant was just that quick.

  Just that quick...couldn’t be. No, it had to be that Jack just didn’t see it coming and didn’t expect it. Alex had to believe that no one could be that quick. He knew that Jack was not a novice with a firearm.